Abstract
When football All-American Michael Sam became the first openly gay player to be drafted by a National Football League (NFL) team he embraced and kissed his boyfriend. The kiss was broadcast during ESPN’s draft coverage and attracted much attention in the media. This chapter reports the results of a content analysis study comparing 67 stories written by Sports and Non-sports Journalists about the kiss. “Journalists/Analysts” were the leading source type used by both groups. While stories tended to be positive overall, those authored by Non-sports Journalists were significantly more positive. However, stories written by Non-sports Journalists were more likely to contain negative comments from sources.
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References
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Cassidy, W.P. (2017). The Kiss. In: Sports Journalism and Coming Out Stories. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62770-0_4
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